#The Strange Redemption of Thaddeus Thawne

[brown-little-robin]

I don't think I've heard of Butterfly Boy before!

hehehehe ACTUALLY

you have! That's the title of my The Strange Redemption of Thaddeus Thawne document.

You get a very rough draft snippet of outline from the Vague Future of the fic, which I will never write, featuring my habit of writing without quotation marks when I'm trying to just let the words flow:

[hesmiledlikeaweatherman-art]

Ever since reading The Strange Redemption of Thaddeus Thawne by @brown-little-robin I’ve had a bit of a hyperfixation on ASL and Jericho. It’s not exactly unusual for me to go for the queer disabled character, so I don’t expect anyone is surprised.

I’m working on a bit of a pet project right now featuring Joseph, Hartley, and Thad, which I’m really excited about!

Jericho here is signing the letter J, which is how he signifies to his teammates that he is in control of another person’s body.

[bluejaysandblackbats]

silence of your song

Fandom: DC Comics, Flashfam, Flash Rogues

Summary: Malcolm Thawne takes in Thad after weeks of being stalked by him. (Post-Mercury Falling)

Chapters: 1/?

Characters: Malcolm Thawne, Thaddeus Thawne, Bart Allen, Barry Allen

Additional Tags: Found Family, Dysfunctional, Reluctant Family, Redemption, Malcolm Thawne Wants a Family, Thaddeus Thawne and Malcolm Thawne Parallels, Canon Divergent AU, Retired Malcolm Thawne, Protective Malcolm Thawne, POV Malcolm Thawne, Childhood Memories, Malcolm Thawne Becomes Thaddeus Thawne's Dad, Adoption

Chapter One: Stray Cats

I kept the window cracked when it rained because my heater broke, and it stayed at a muggy eighty-six degrees in my fire trap of an apartment. I muted the TV and let it play, hoping it’d be on when I woke up from another nightmare. The thunder blocked out the sound of my upstairs neighbors loudly whispering while they argued, but I could hear every little noise outside my window. I could listen to every pitter-patter and drip-drop. Every rattle rattle and clang-bang. The noise was comforting. And comfort was in short supply since I was released.

I was tense, but not without reason. I’d been free for four months and in my apartment for two when I noticed a little boy trailing me. At first, I thought it was Barry’s grandson, but he had to be in his early twenties. This kid was maybe thirteen or fourteen… And blond. I had to give it to the kid. Most people wouldn’t have noticed him. He could’ve followed and taken notes for months before anyone recognized him. But I wasn’t anybody. Still, I figured he was one of them. I wanted to leave that part of my life behind and start over, but the pressure was immense with a pint-sized parole officer snooping around. That night, I didn’t see him. It was freezing outside, but inside, it was unbearable. I didn’t sleep with blankets anymore. Instead, I lay on the couch in summer clothes, having nightmares about my childhood. I woke with a jolt, clutching my chest. I leaned forward, clasping my hands around my neck, trying not to dwell on the pain. The nauseating anguish of an undeserved beating haunted me and pulled me apart, leaving me to pick up pieces of myself every night. That night, I laughed. I laughed because I was exhausted, sore, and sweaty. I would’ve spiraled, focusing only on the pain, had it not been for a strange sliver of light in the mostly dark living room. I looked toward the fire escape, feeling a strange sense of comfort. It felt like a sign that everything would be alright.

I heard a high-pitched shriek and a clanging sound like metal on metal. I stood up before realizing what I was doing and found myself standing on my fire escape in the rain, pulling the little boy up by his jacket. I pulled him up, and his legs gave. He crumpled, and I threw him over my shoulder. Thunder crackled, shaking the building, and he groaned. I couldn’t leave him outside on the metal fire escape to get electrocuted, so I took him inside. I carried him to my room and changed him into a dry sweatshirt. He stirred before raising a hand to me, and I caught his little wrist in my fist.

“Don’t call the police,” he panicked. I raised an eyebrow before laughing at him. The laugh built from a chuckle to a hollering roar once I saw the wide-eyed, slack-jawed look on his face. His face was so round and immature. He couldn’t have been Barry’s grandson. He was so small up close. His fear shifted to confusion, and my shirt slipped off his shoulder.

He shivered, and I let go of him to grab a towel. I heard him shift once I turned my back. “Sit down. I’m not gonna call the cops,” I reassured him, “Do you like tea?”

“Like sweet tea?” he asked weakly. I chuckled and shook my head.

“Stay put. You’re not in any trouble. I’ll take you home once you’re warmed up,” I replied, “And put those sweats on. I’ll be back in a minute.”

I left him alone in my room and put the tea kettle on the stove. He stumbled into the kitchen behind me, holding the hem of his shirt and the waistband of his sweatpants in his fist. “Pull the waistband as far as it goes and put it around your neck,” I explained. He did as I said, watching me with uncertain eyes. I pulled a chair over and invited him to sit near the kitchen island. The color hadn’t returned to his cheeks, and his head drooped forward. Almost dying took a lot out of the kid. I opened a bag of chips and passed it to him. “Where are your folks?”

“Don’t have any,” he answered.

Despite the fatigue, his eyes kept steady contact with mine. He wasn’t lying. “Where do you live?” I asked. He didn’t answer. I had hundreds of questions for the kid, but they weren’t my priority. “How old are you supposed to be?”

“I’m supposed to be fourteen,” he answered.

The kettle whistled, and I turned my back. “It’s late for a kid your age to be out peeping in windows,” I teased, “I should’ve known you didn’t have anybody to go home to… Or they’re not paying enough attention. I get the feeling you have folks, but you don’t wanna go home to them. I recognize your face. You look a lot like Barry’s-.” I turned to give him his tea and smiled at him. He lay fast asleep over the counter, breathing hard, almost snoring. I set the cup on the other side of the counter and carried him to bed.

My questions could wait until the morning. I draped blankets over the kid, and he rolled onto his stomach. “Sleep tight, little guy,” I whispered. I returned to the kitchen, drank his tea, and slept on my couch. The pitter-patter and drip-drops, the crackles and booms, and the noise of my neighbors and the fire escape faded away. I slept through the night feeling something I’d never felt before. Comfort.

*

I caught the boy trying to sneak out in the morning and grabbed the back of his sweatshirt before picking him up and holding him at arm’s length like a baby. He struggled and scratched, lashing out like a feral cat, but he didn’t scream. He didn’t make much noise. Not at all. “Hey… Hey, I’m gonna put you down, but you’ve gotta calm down and let me help you. I need to know why you’ve been following me. I’m not gonna hurt you,” I reassured him. He stopped fighting, and I set him down, straightening his sweatshirt.

He wrung his little scarred fists. “I wanted to meet the person who-. You’re the reason I’m here… And I want to know why,” his little voice broke. I nodded, but I didn’t understand. “You thought I was Bart.”

“You’re smaller than him… He looked like that the last time I saw him, but he should be older now,” I whispered, “Who are you?”

“I’m a clone… Of Bart... I was supposed to finish what you started. I was supposed to kill the Allens, and I failed,” he answered, “And you quit! Why didn’t you do it yourself? Why is all the pressure on me? I shouldn’t even-!” I shushed him. “I shouldn’t even be here. I’m alone because of you. I exist because of you. It’s all your fault that I have no one.” He whispered the last part.

I sat on the arm of the couch and listened to the kid while he explained what he was and where he came from. “Hey… Okay… That’s a lot. You’re fourteen... Right? Let-. Let me help you. I want to help, okay?” I asked. I felt awful “Why would you wanna help me?” he snapped.

My hands shook as I heard the question. The kid might’ve looked like Barry’s grandson, but he sounded like me when I was his age. “You’re a little weirdo. I was a little weirdo, too. An oddball. I was an oddball as a kid,” I tripped over my words. “You can stay here until you let me take you home.”

“I don’t need-.”

“You need a legal guardian. You need a family, and I don’t have one-.”

“You don’t understand. I hate you,” the kid interrupted.

“Hate me all you want, but you’re fourteen with no family. I want you to stay put. You can’t be homeless. I can’t let you be homeless… Okay? I need you to falsify some documents saying you’re my kid and that your mom is missing or something-.”

“Why?” he questioned.

“Because I’ll be able to explain why you’re here when my neighbors see you… And I don’t have money to take care of you, but I can take care of you-. I need to be able-. I want to help you. My job takes care of me, but I’ve gotta take care of you because I owe you,” I stammered. His eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to argue, but nothing came out. “No argument?”

“I don’t feel well,” he replied. I smiled and rustled a hand through his thick blond curls. He swatted my hand away.

“Sorry… Hey, what’s your name?” I asked.

“I’m named Thaddeus Thawne after the president-.”

“President?” I asked.

“Yeah, but he’s-. Well, I-. It’s hard to explain,” Thaddeus replied. It was a big name for such a small kid.

“What do you like to be called? People tried to call me Mack when I was a kid, and I didn’t let it stick because I preferred Malcolm. After all, the people that called me Mack were never friendly enough to me to be that familiar with me,” I explained.

“Thad is fine,” he answered.

I felt sick in the pit of my stomach looking at him. I couldn’t blame him for hating me. He was under immense pressure to finish what I started. I still couldn’t help but see myself in him. His loneliness. His anger. His longing. I figured I could fix things by being the person I needed when I was his age. So it began. Two Thawnes. Blood Allens.

[unreversedumbrella]

i'd like to make clear that thaddeus thawne has 31 canon appearences (of which i'd argue only those from the impulse series should count) and meanwhile @brown-little-robin's the strange redemption of thaddeus thawne (the fic that made me love thad) has currently 46 chapters

I think every comic book fan should be a little bit obsessed with at least one obscure character with less appearances than the number of chapters in the fics they're in

[eyefocusing]

a lil scene from @brown-little-robin‘s fic, the strange redemption of thaddeus thawne! ive been rly enjoying it so far :3c

[brown-little-robin]

49: The Party

part one | previous | next | masterlist | ao3 version

instead of the first few paragraphs of this chapter going before the readmore button, I'm going to put a longer author's note. I hope you'll forgive the break from habit.

So, Strange Redemption matters to me a lot. I'm sorry about the often months-long breaks between chapters and grateful that many of you who've been here since updates were weekly have kept coming back. <333

In regards to future plans, I've noticed that it's easier to write Strange Redemption when I'm at low points personally. Easier to tap into Thad's headspace that way. Concern about that plus a healthier headspace plus the increased workload of my final year of college was what caused me to slow way down on writing and posting the story. Now that I have some breathing room in my life again, I've made the decision that I'm definitely going to finish at least the first half of my planned two halves of Strange Redemption. We're so close to the end of Thad's solo run!! We're almost there with him! I can hang in there until the end of this next story arc, which will conclude most of the story pretty well, in my opinion.

The second half of Strange Redemption I had all planned out to explore more original characters (some of you will know what I'm talking about—my darling clones Three through Ten). I honestly don't know if I'll write that half soon or at all, so I guess we'll find that out together! I have some great ideas for the hypothetical second half, if I do say so myself, but I'm restraining myself firmly from making ANY promises about it.

Thanks again! Back to the story!

Thad went to bed yesterday with vague fear lashing around in his head like wrestling metahumans, and he wakes up with the bones of that fear nestled in a lump in the back of his brain. He feels a plan forming. He lets it rest, that little lump of inspiration born of fear. Thaddeus knows how this goes.

He makes plans, because he’s a clone, because he was made to make plans. He ruins things because he was made to ruin things. He recognizes his own pattern.

In about a day, it’ll come to him. The Plan. The new Perfect Plan to dissect with CRAYDL.

Only this time, Thaddeus isn’t sure what the plan will be for. 

It’s something about what he realized yesterday: that he should be afraid, and he isn’t. Something about that thing he found out on the computer at the library weeks ago: that being struck by lightning can change your personality. Something about how terrifying it was to forget his new name when he was talking to the maid, and to realize how flimsy, how fake it sounded in his mouth, Sophos Thaddeus Anacletus Free. It felt like nothing. Less than nothing, less than calling himself Bart.

Something… about that. Thad stares at himself brushing his teeth in the mirror and lets the lump of soon-to-be-Plan grow, shift. The imaginary form of the Plan feels more real than his body.

Thad puts on a green plaid shirt with hands that don’t feel anything. It’s reassuringly familiar, this sense of removal. It’s a relief not to feel like a person for a while. He can sense victory in the distance, and with victory so close, secondary things like his physical body don’t actually matter.

Joseph comments on Thad’s preoccupation at breakfast. He points at Thad and raises his eyebrows—a question without content, just what’s with you?

And if Thad was with CRAYDL, he would have smiled wickedly and said Wait and see… and CRAYDL would have said aww, Boss! And Thad would have laughed and ignored it and CRAYDL would have cajoled until Thad divulged Yes, I'm thinking up a new plan. I’m not telling you yet… I’m still working on it… I think it’ll be good, though… really good…

He comes back to the present moment and shrugs. “Just something.”

Joseph looks at him, waiting. Takes another bite of pancake.

It would be so easy to tell him. Just like CRAYDL. But—

But Joseph isn’t CRAYDL, and why does Thad feel so safe, anyway? A lightning strike can change your personality. The lump of fear twists, and Thad swallows and shrugs again.

“Clone… stuff, I think,” he lies. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

The instant compassion on Joseph’s face is too much. Thad drops his fork and buries his face in his hands, suddenly overwhelmed.

He hates using “clone issues” as an excuse, he decides. It brings too much to the surface—things he’d rather stay down in the depths of him. His face is hot behind his hands, long lashes just like Bart’s brushing the palms of his Thawne hands.

Yeah, no. He’s not doing that again unless he has to.

Mortified for no good reason, he picks up the fork in his fist and starts eating again, avoiding looking straight at Joseph.

They finish breakfast in silence. Thad wishes Joseph would ask him again. Then he remembers he absolutely should not feel this safe around Joseph. Then he wishes it again, childish, selfish. He wants to be understood.

But they have ground rules, and one of Thad’s ground rules for Joseph was not to make Thad talk about being a clone. So Joseph doesn’t ask Thad anything else, although Thad sees his sea-green eyes tracking Thad anxiously.

Thad gulps down the rest of his breakfast and dumps his dishes in the sink with numb hands.

Thad spends the afternoon in his Plum room, drawing, unhurriedly putting his thoughts together into the beginning of a plan, and spacing out. He’s not sure how much he’s dissociating, but he thinks it’s a lot. The sun moves on the floor when he’s not looking and he finds himself stiff and sore from laying in the same position and has to move, wincing, to wake up his muscles and ease the pressed points of his bones.

In the evening, the guests arrive in ones and twos to Joseph’s party. Some fly, some are carried, others drive up the driveway. Changeling—or Beast Boy, Thad doesn’t know how the timeline has progressed this time—arrives as a cheetah. Thad watches from his tower window, scoping out the situation. His brain kicks into gear again, and he’s grateful for it. He needs not to be spacing out and losing time quite so much right now.

A little later, Joseph comes to get him. Thad pushes the scraps of plans even further back into his mind and smiles and nods and follows him downstairs.

Before they enter the study, Joseph stops Thad walking with a gesture. Thad stops and waits, looking at Joseph’s fuzzy green velvet vest instead of his face.

But Joseph’s hands don’t move in speech. The man clasps his hands against his chest, a strangely nervous gesture. Surprised, Thad looks at Joseph’s face. He looks worried.

Thad flinches. Worried—Joseph is worried about introducing Thad to his friends? Oh. Thad breaks eye contact, looks at the wall for a moment, then forces his eyes back to Joseph’s hands with all his strength.

Joseph signs, “Are you nervous?”

Thad shakes his head.

Joseph tilts his head at him, but Thad is already committed to the lie.

“OK,” Joseph signs. Then he puts his hands to his heart and smiles at Thad, crinkling up his eyes. “They’ll love you.”

Thad doubts it, but whatever. He finds himself smiling back at Joseph, charmed and amused by the hyperbole.

Quietly, so as not to be heard inside the room, Thad asks, “You introduce a lot of supervillains to your friends?”

“Lots and lots,” Joseph signs, grinning.

Thad rolls his eyes, making Joseph huff out a soft amused breath. “Whatever. Fine, let’s go.”

Thad slows time as he steps around the corner of the propped-open door to the study. It looks like the people here are comfortable, for the most part. Wonder Woman is standing at the window with her husband and the Gotham vigilante Nightwing. Nightwing is nothing to worry about for a speedster who knows what he’s doing, but Wonder Woman is a bigger threat. Danny Chase is cross-legged in an armchair, talking to Starfire, who’s sitting in midair in front of him. Neither of them is a threat, although Danny Chase’s intellect might be annoying to deal with. Cyborg is currently wrestling playfully with Changeling. Changeling is below Thad’s notice, no threat at all; Cyborg’s sonic capacities are to be steered clear from, even for Inertia. Raven—

Raven. Thad’s attention narrows immediately as he spots her, leaning comfortably on the back of an armchair. She’s already looking in his direction.

He pulls time to as near a halt as he can.

What will Raven think of him? What will she say? She reads minds, she’ll know about the Plan, she’ll know he’s lying to Joseph. The only possible hope here is that Thaddeus himself doesn’t fully know what he’s planning. Despite the immediate idea of pretending the Plan is something entirely innocent, an immediate image of Joseph bleeding out jumps to the front of Thad’s mind. No—no! He has to get a hold of himself. He’s not planning anything like that. Never. He’d never hurt Joseph Wilson. No more than he’d hurt Max, or Helen.

Maybe Thad is more nervous to meet Joseph’s friends than he thought.

Well, Thad wasn’t Inertia for nothing. He’s smart. He can do this. All he has to do is survive the introductions.

He lets time speed up again and steps into the room. Raven says nothing, just raises her hand and waves at him and Joseph.

Nightwing notices them enter a moment after Raven waves. He calls, “Joey!”

Everyone pauses their activities and looks over. Thad freezes, but none of them are looking at him in this instant. Every face in the room beams to see Joseph Wilson. They love him, Thad realizes with a shock.

They really love their “Joey”.

The old jealous void in Thad’s chest roars to life. He wishes he was like Joseph. He wishes he could step into a room and have everyone love him immediately.

Joseph’s hand comes down on Thad’s shoulder. It’s warm and settling. The void clutches at the sensation of physical touch, then settles down again. Thad feels it thrumming in him, a current of safety and surety tied to Joseph that the speed force put into him like pouring electricity into a wire.

Joseph lifts his hand. Thad clings to the memory of the touch.

“This is my kid, Thad,” Joseph signs.

Thad looks quickly out at the room to see their reactions.

Joseph’s friends nod and smile. A few of them—Starfire, Nightwing, Changeling—say “Hello” in cheerful tones of voice. Danny Chase raises an eyebrow. Raven smiles.

Thad doesn’t know what to say in this situation. The urge to chirp “Hi!” like Bart would occurs to him and he squashes that impulse with extreme prejudice. Instead, he adds some more identifying information.

“I used to be Inertia,” he says.

“Yeah, we heard,” Danny Chase says, bluntly but not unkindly.

Thad shrugs at him. “Redundant information never hurts.”

“It does if it’s boring.”

“Oh, stop, Danny,” Starfire laughs. “Just because you’re bored doesn’t mean the rest of us are.”

Danny snaps back, and conversation starts again all over the study. That’s it, then? That was the introduction?

Joseph gestures Thad to go further into the room. Thad takes a few steps forward and stops, unsure where to go. Raven, watching him, makes a come here gesture.

Thad obeys, because not going will just make this worse. At least Raven is alone, and at least he’s familiar with her, more familiar than with the other people here, anyway. “Better the devil you know”, as they say in this century.

Joseph’s quiet, bright presence behind him soothes Thad’s worst fears. It’s like having CRAYDL looming there. Support. Someone here who likes him. Trusts him.

“I’m sorry you’re afraid of me,” Raven says softly.

Thad grits his teeth. He hates interacting with a mind reader. He can’t argue with that.

“I’m fine.”

“I know,” Raven says. “Don’t worry about me, Thaddeus. I’m not going to say anything about you.”

Really? What about the Plan?

“Really?”

“Nothing at all. I promise,” Raven says. She unfurls herself from the back of the armchair and holds out a long, black-nailed hand.

Thaddeus shakes her hand firmly before she can take it back.

Then he smiles. Maybe this party will be survivable, after all.

[brown-little-robin]

47: How To Get Breakfast

part one | previous | next | masterlist | ao3 version

Thad wakes up being pressed into a soft surface by a thick blanket, and it’s so incomprehensibly cozy that he forgets it’s unfamiliar for the five whole minutes it takes him to fully wake up.

He stretches luxuriously. Rubs the last remnants of sleep out of his eyes. He’s in the Plum Room, and morning light is coming in through the window.

Thad feels… good? He feels good. He feels not exhausted. He feels "good".

Weird.

Thad Free remembers the questions and anxieties and energy of last night and can’t fully summon up the urgency to care that much about it. Not that he's apathetic to the questions of his existence, but right now that's just background stress, overall goals to be worked toward slowly. The highest priority right now is how, in this house, he can get some breakfast.

He gets dressed in pants and a t-shirt and, after some deliberation, adds his black jacket, more to cover his bare arms than to add warmth; the chill that pervaded Max’s house, making Thad want to curl up and freeze, just doesn’t exist here. The carpet is warm. The air is warm.

Thad exits his room and creeps downstairs, on the alert for Adeline or the maid he’s heard of but not yet seen.

He finds Joseph in a chair in the study downstairs, feet propped up on a footstool. Thad stands in the doorway of the study and smiles helplessly.

There is something so stupidly domestic about Joseph’s feet in yellow socks up on that footstool. Like something he’d see in a documentary about American life. And this from a man capable of possessing people! A man with such mastery of martial arts that he’s capable of being on a team of metahumans. A man with scars all over him, from the matching marks of the impalement wound through his back and chest to the pale scar visible above the neckline of Joseph’s loose sweater. It just makes Thad smile, is all.

Joseph looks up and smiles at Thad. He puts the book down and signs, “Good morning!”

“Good morning,” Thad says back, and clears his throat. His voice is still scratchy from sleep. “How does a person eat in this household?”

Joseph blinks at him. “Eat? You? You want to eat?”

“Yes, but what are the rules?”

“Just… the usual ones…” Joseph signs, clearly trying to understand what That is asking and not quite getting it. “You can eat when you’re hungry… eat in the kitchen, but if you eat in another room, clean up after yourself…?”

“Okay.” Thad comes and stands closer to Joseph’s chair, not close enough for Joseph to touch him but a more friendly distance. “That’s all I needed to know, I think. I just…”

Joseph waits. Thad’s not even sure where his hesitation is coming from, other than the fact that he’s not used to feeling this comfortable with sharing things that could be used against him. And he is comfortable with Joseph. It’s… strange.

“I don’t know,” Thad says, and shrugs. “I’m not used to… being one of the people that the rules apply to. I feel like I’m going to mess something up.”

Joseph’s mouth silently forms the word ahh. He nods.

And now Thad feels awkward standing here. And he’s hungry. He says, “I’m going to get breakfast, then.”

Joseph stands up decisively. Uh. What is he doing?

“No, I’ll make breakfast.”

Okay?

Why?

Thad follows Joseph to the kitchen. Adeline is in the Great Room, working on her laptop. She looks up as Joseph and Thad come in, and Thad flinches when her sharp gaze flicks to him.

He can’t help it. She’s—she’s in charge. She’s Joseph’s mother. She could probably convince Joseph to abandon Thad if she really tried. Thad knows Joseph promised that he’d stick with Thad no matter what, but still, Adeline has known Joseph longer. She surely must matter more to him, have more influence on him. Thad is just a new project to Joseph, a charity case, something like a pet, at best. Adeline is his mother.

She’s like President Thawne.

Thaddeus suddenly realizes that if Adeline is like President Thawne, who is technically his grandfather, that makes Joseph the equivalent of Meloni Thawne, technically Thaddeus’s mother, although Thaddeus never met her. He’s a clone, after all; she didn’t even give birth to him. Ugh, this line of thought is making him feel weird. He tugs the sleeves of his jacket down further over his arms and sticks his hands in his pockets.

“Morning,” Adeline calls.

Joseph waves cheerily.

Thad hurries to get closer to Joseph and sticks close to him as they go into the kitchen.

Once they’re out of eyeshot of Adeline, Joseph turns and ruffles Thad’s hair. Thad shudders at the weird sensation, but doesn’t pull away. It's nice to be… well. Loved might be too strong a word.

Joseph asks, “What do you want for breakfast?”

Uh…

“What do you like?” Joseph amends.

It is such a relief to be asked a question he can answer. “Sweet things. I like all foods,” he adds hastily, mindful of not asking more than Joseph can give. “But sweet things are my favorites.”

“Okay, sweet thing,” Joseph signs playfully, grinning.

What—that’s not—Thad feels his cheeks flush and he looks away, shoving his hands further into his jacket pockets. That’s not—he’s not—is he—?—Joseph thinks he’s—

The familiar little pop of Joseph snapping his fingers for Thad’s attention interrupts, uh, whatever that was.

“Pancakes?” Joseph asks.

“Sure.” Oh wait. Thad should be polite. He’s too comfortable with Joseph. “Yes, please.”

Joseph smiles at him, wrinkling up his nose in what looks like amusement. He signs, “Don’t worry, I like making food. I’m taking advantage of my time off work. Every other day, you’ll have to make your own breakfast.” He grimaces apologetically. “I work Monday through Saturday. Monday-Wednesday-Friday, I help with programs and planning at the community center. Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday I teach during the mornings at the community center.”

Thad nods. He repeats that information to himself in his head until he’s sure he has it memorized.

Joseph asks, “Will you be okay on your own, when I’m working?”

“…Yes?” What else can Thad say? No? That he’ll break down and kill people while Joseph is gone?

Thad and Joseph stare at each other for a minute. Joseph looks like he’s realizing how much of an unhelpful question that was.

Thad asks, “What do you mean by ‘okay’?”

“Okay to get yourself breakfast?”

“Oh! Yes. Yes, I can get myself breakfast. I’ll figure it out.”

Joseph visibly hesitates, then asks, “Do you know how cereal works?”

Thad breaks down and laughs. “Yes, I know how cereal works.”

Joseph laughs as well, silently, eyes gleaming. “I had to ask.”

“I know.” Thad’s grinning so hard it hurts his face. It’s been a while since he's had so much fun with the fact that he’s a clone. With Max, talking about being a clone is always agonizing. With Joseph, sometimes it’s just funny. “I grew up in a tube, I know you had to ask. But yes, I know how cereal works. I know how the world works, theoretically. It’s just the applied aspects I don’t have experience with.”

Joseph ruffles his hair again. Thad allows it, and then shakes his head hard when Joseph takes his hand away. His hair swishes around. It's strange, having long hair like he's pretending to be Bart, like he's not inside CRAYDL anymore. It's even stranger to not really mind.

Joseph said it wasn't wrong to want long hair. He said it didn't have to be about Bart. Thad thinks maybe, maybe that could be true. Maybe someday not everything about him will come back around to being Inertia.

Someday soon.

He’s hungry. He could freeze time while Joseph blinked and eat something out of the pantry without Joseph ever knowing, but he has more self-control than Bart, thank you very much. He waits, letting his stomach growl, while Joseph moves purposefully around the kitchen, gathering ingredients and whisking them into a bowl. Thad watches from his position on a high stool next to the marble-topped “island”.

The butter sizzles as it hits the pan.

As Joseph pours the first dollop of batter onto the pan, Thad stretches himself across the marble countertop and lets it dig into his stomach. He reaches toward the stove like a zombie.

“It smells so good,” Thad groans. “This is a form of torture.”

Joseph turns around and grins at him. “Too slow for you, speedy?”

“Ugh, don’t call me that.” Thad isn’t serious. He’s mostly not serious. It reminds him of Bart, which hurts, actually. But he wants to keep joking around with Joseph, so he doesn’t let it show. “I’m not speedy, I’m normal speed. It’s the rest of the world that’s slow.”

Joseph crinkles his eyes at Thad. “They’ll be ready in a few minutes. Want a snack?”

“Yes please!”

Joseph kneels below the counter, disappearing from Thad’s view. There’s a clunk sound. Thad climbs up on the countertop and looks down at what Joseph’s doing. There’s a cupboard built into the island; Joseph has it open and is spinning a little rack with stuff in it.

Joseph looks up at Thad and shakes his head, smiling. He signs, “Monkey. Clean that.”

Thad blinks. “What?”

“The countertop. You got your feet all over it, you’re going to clean it up.” Joseph smiles to show that he’s not angry, which Thad appreciates in the part of his mind that’s not stinging from being reprimanded. ASL is a blunt language; there’s no way to get around all possible statements being incredibly direct. But Joseph is good at making things less hurtful.

Thad gets down from the island and starts looking around for cleaning supplies. Joseph taps him on the shoulder, and he startles and turns around. Joseph offers him a crinkly bag of… chocolate chips…?

“Sweet things,” Joseph signs, grinning. “Don’t eat all of them, they’re for the pancakes. You can clean up after breakfast.”

“Okay.”

Thad carries the bag of chocolate chips back to the countertop island. Joseph flips the pancakes, then flips them again and serves them up for Thad on a slightly chipped china plate.

They fall into a comfortable rhythm. Joseph watches the pancakes, leaning on the counter. Joseph pours, watches, flips, watches, and then gives them to Thad, who places the chocolate chips on top of them at evenly spaced intervals. He eats the finished pancakes at a moderate pace, pacing himself against how fast the pancakes are baking as if it’s a game. The smell of butter and chocolate fills the room.

At some point, Joseph asks, “How are you?”

Thad considers.

“Good,” he says, still surprised to hear himself say it. “I’m good.”

[brown-little-robin]

Well, you're in luck!

In Strange Redemption, Young Justice isn't an official team anymore, but they have reunions and they're pretty much all in touch.

Anita Fite is a single mom of her seven-year-old parents. Her dad is in soccer, making her a soccer mom, much to her dismay and amusement. She's a professional photographer, funnily enough, and she and Tim Drake text photos and memes back and forth pretty regularly. Sometimes she gets Young Justice members to babysit for her and goes out as Empress. She's busy busy busy but it's a good life.

Cissie King-Jones is a pro athlete and sometime-actress! She's "the successful friend", which she has mixed feelings about. She donates blood six times a year. Cissie lives in Metropolis and keeps up with Cassie, Greta, and, to some extent, the rest of Young Justice. Bart sleeps on her couch a lot, and she loves him a whole bunch, platonically. They trust each other. She also has developed a few good civilian relationships of her own. She has a complicated but okay relationship with her mom. Cissie owns three gorgeous cats, to whom she is a doting owner.

Greta Hayes is a coffee shop barista! She finished high school at St. Elias School for Girls and tried college (architecture major!), but within a year she'd decided that she actually liked her part-time job as a barista so much that she'd like to do that full-time. So that's where she's at! Greta has been seriously dating the same young man for three years now, and they're thinking of getting engaged. Greta also has a green thumb (her apartment is a jungle!) and really wants a dog, but her apartment doesn't allow them. Maybe later... ;)

Cassie Sandsmark is Wonder Girl, but she's planning to talk to Diana about becoming Wonder Woman. Soon. And then, in the future, maybe when she reaches 25, she thinks she might like to lead a superhero team again rather than just being in the Justice League and a mentor to the new Teen Titans (Damian's team). Meanwhile, in her civilian life, she was a trucker for a year, but it was way less romantic and more uncomfortable than she thought it would be, so she quit and became a black belt in Judo. She teaches Judo at her community center now. Her identity is publically known, and she attracts a lot of starry-eyed girls to learn martial arts from her. She loves it. She gives her friends lots of very strong hugs and they yell at her for being a black belt because it's funny to blame her black belt status rather than her super-strength (which no longer depends on parental approval!). Cassie has a very large dog and lots of colleagues and friends. She's doing good.

Tim Drake is Nightwing on a temporary basis; Dick had to get a shoulder surgery with a long recovery time, and Tim, tired of being Red Robin, welcomed the opportunity to be something new. He's taking the time to come up with his own new identity. Tim is not in college and (much to his angst) not seriously dating either. He has about a bajillion community projects, though, and is starting to really see the effects of some of his initiatives like the Neon Knights program to get youth out of gangs. He's proud of himself when he takes the time to admit it. Tim keeps up with all his friends, scheduling them into his packed calendar with his own brand of analytical love. He is also trying to find someone to replace him as prince of an alien moon (thanks a lot, Bart. Remind him never to go on a "super fun and chill space adventure" with Impulse ever again.)

Bart Allen is Impulse. Two months ago, he was the Flash. Three months before that, he was Impulse. He wavers back and forth: it's a cycle of "I need to man up and mature and be the Flash and carry on the legacy!" and then "No, actually, I do better and am happier as Impulse". He shows no signs of settling on one or the other. He's also at that awkward place of young adulthood where he's So Very Unstable that the adults around him are starting to wonder if he'll ever have a civilian job. He flits between gigs; he somehow earns enough income to survive, but he's a confirmed couch surfer. Max suspects that Tim Drake slips money into Bart's account sometimes, and he's right. It's transactional, though; Bart does a lot of errands for Tim. Bart is the glue of the Young Justice friend group, keeps everyone in contact, serves as an enthusiastic mode of transportation for their meet-ups. He has a well-worn guitar. He kisses Helen on the cheeks whenever he sees her. He has not fallen in love again. Bless his earnest heart.

Kon-El is Supernova! This identity is not my invention, but I adore the concept of his leaving Superboy behind for Supernova. He's reborn! He's new! He's an exploding star! He's... going to therapy!!! He's going to therapy because he has a little brother (Jon Kent) now, and he's starting to realize that if anyone treated Jon like people treated Kon, he would tear them limb from limb. So, yeah, Kon is a year and a half into therapy and I'm so proud of him. Kon is working on his relationship with Clark. He lives on his own (he's really good at cooking for being a bachelor! he loves to feed people!), but he drops in on the Kents so often it's like he's half in and half out of their household. His therapist recommended that he develop a hobby unrelated to his public persona, so he has a YouTube channel as "Conner" where he does synth music mixes and posts startlingly realistic nature-sounds ambience videos (he just flies around the world and records nature sounds lol). Kon is also currently grieving his dream of being in a band. He thinks about it regularly (it would be so cool...), but doesn't want to deal with team drama ever again, and also, not that he'd say this out loud, doesn't want to be viewed as a sex object again. He is still the mom friend. <3<3<3

Slo-bo is still dead, but he is remembered.

(have I idly wondered what and how all the now-young adult members of YJ are doing in an ideal universe, i.e. the continuity of @brown-little-robin's Strange Redemption, even though it has no relevance whatsoever to that fic's plot? yes. yes, I have.)

[brown-little-robin]

48: Neutral Territory

part one | previous | next | masterlist | ao3 version

On the first Monday of September, Thad will start college at Metropolis University. That leaves him one week to, as Joseph puts it, “settle in”. One in-between week where Joseph is working and Thad is free to wander around as he chooses.

He doesn’t feel like he’s “settling in”. He feels like he’s split in half. He’s half happy, half… something else.

When he’s with Joseph, he’s happy. Simple as that. He hangs around Joseph whenever he can and only leaves him when he has to.

Joseph has taken to braiding Thad’s hair every night before bed, so that it stays out of his face at night, he says. In actuality, Thad thinks Joseph just likes braiding Thad’s hair. It’s embarrassing. It’s horrible. It makes Thad purr.

He likes it.

Thad always takes the braid out in the morning. He leaves his hair long and wild in the daytime, like Bart’s, only not, because, in this house, no one but himself thinks of him as a clone of Bart. It makes him smile sometimes, knowing that Joseph doesn’t think of his hair as like Bart. To Joseph, Bart's hair would be like Thad. Sometimes the long hair bothers him, but Thad can live with that. You win some, you lose some, as Joseph says sometimes.

Thad learns things about Joseph. Bit by bit. Joseph likes orange muffins in the mornings, and he has an assortment of ridiculous robes to sleep in that he changes out of before he leaves his room in the morning, maybe because they expose so much of his chest. Thad doesn’t mind; he lost his capacity to react emotionally to nudity a long time ago. Thad’s favorite of Joseph’s robes so far is a yellow one with blue dragons on it. It clashes with Joseph’s hair and his skin. The first time he saw the yellow robe, it nearly made Thad give himself up by laughing.

Thad spies on Joseph sometimes, vibrating himself into the attic space above Joseph’s room’s ceiling. It’s a dark little habit; he’ll break it one of these days, maybe, when he stops feeling like Joseph stops existing when Thad’s not watching him.

It does occur to Thad to ask Joseph if he can sleep in the same room. Luckily, he’s not insane, so he immediately banishes the thought from his mind.

When he’s not with Joseph… when he’s not with Joseph, he’s back to being Thaddeus Thawne again.

The Plum Room is his territory, and the rest of the house is… neutral territory. Adeline’s suite is enemy grounds. Maybe he shouldn’t think of her as an enemy, but he can’t seem to help it. That sort of thing is built into his DNA.

Joey assures Thad that Adeline tolerates him, likes him, even, but every time she speaks to him it’s so brusque Thad can’t help but think of her as a President Thawne, a looming figure with all the power. He avoids her, and he avoids her rooms.

The great room and the kitchen and pantry are neutral zones. Thad doesn’t like them. They’re too open. They make his back itch. The pantry is better—it’s small. He feels safe there, surrounded by bread and peanut butter and sacks of flour and sugar and a virtual colony of snacks. It’s stupid. It’s stupid how safe it makes him feel, all that food, available for him at any time.

He takes advantage of the food at random times, testing the promise, and when Joseph notices, it just makes him smile, which makes Thad happy. So maybe it’s not entirely stupid.

The east side of the mansion is neutral territory. The pool room is beautiful, alluring, tempting… dangerous. It would be too easy to relax into that water and just—lose himself. He might dissociate in there, and he’s had Adeline’s warning that he could drown that way running through his head since she said it. No, the pool room is wonderful, but he doesn’t use it. The closest he comes is sitting on the edge of the pools, thinking. Just… thinking. Swirling his feet in the water, sometimes.

The water feels like CRAYDL.

He thinks maybe he’s mourning, or whatever twisted semblance of that emotion he’s capable of.

He doesn’t talk about CRAYDL to Joseph. Not much. Just bits and pieces, here and there. Facts. Not feelings.

The music room is Joseph’s room. Thad loves it the same way he loves Joseph—in a shockingly uncomplicated way. It’s a good room, it has beautiful things in it, and it’s full of strange knowledge. It’s a puzzle Thad wants to figure out. It’s a refuge when he gets tired of the rest of the house.

The exercise room—

Thad went in there once, when Joseph was gone. He was bored and feeling vaguely guilty for existing; he wanted to work out.

He got as far as resting his hand on a treadmill and suddenly had an urge to vomit so strong that he had to run away.

The next day, he’d gradually worked around to asking Joseph if, hypothetically, if Thad wanted to, which he doesn’t, if he could go for a run, just for fun, just to keep himself in shape or whatever, and if that would be terrible, or selfish, since he can’t be a vigilante like the rest of Flash’s little cadre.

Joseph said yes, of course Thad could go for a run, whenever he wanted to. He looked away from Thad as he signed, a mercy Thad didn’t realize he needed until it became a lifeline.

Joseph said, “You don’t have to put your powers to use as a hero, Thad. It’s okay to just let them out for fun.”

Thad had been silent a little too long. Joseph had added, “Go be a kid if you want to. Run around.”

So. Thad tried.

And failed.

The Flash is out there somewhere. The idea of running into him paralyzed Thad before he took a single step. All he could do was stand in the yard watching the frozen landscape and trying to let the world speed back up around him.

So. Thad is half happy, half unhappy, and he’s still useless.

Upstairs is mostly good, apart from Adeline’s study and the Green Room. Thad likes his room. He likes Joseph’s room, too, when Joseph is there. He feels safe with him. The upstairs hallways, though… well. They’re the maid May’s property, and Thad doesn’t really know what that means.

He’d met her on Monday. He tried to ignore her like he used to ignore the servants who occasionally invaded CRAYDL to bring parts for repair, but she’d said hello to him directly. Thad had frozen, recalculating, and then said hello back. She’d asked how he liked the mansion. He’d stayed silent for a moment, calculating. What did she mean by that? What did she want? What kind of power did she have here? She was a servant, so surely not much. But a trusted servant, so he has to be cautious.

Thad hates not having all the information so, so much. He feels like Bart.

Finally, he’d said, “Where I grew up, servants don’t talk like that.”

It was a gamble. If she was like CRAYDL, trusted and valued, almost a friend to Adeline, she could complain. Thad would be in trouble then.

May had stared at him for a moment.

“…Sorry to hear that,” she’d said. “Where did you grow up?”

Another question. Grife. How much was Thad allowed to tell her?

The maid added, “I know about everything Adeline does, so don’t worry about that. I tell you, the non-disclosure agreements I had to sign when I got this job… that was decades ago, but I still remember like it was yesterday!”

Oh, great. So she is like CRAYDL. That makes her approximately equal with Thad, power-wise. Thad recalculated his approach again. They’re going to have to establish a hierarchy here somehow. Better sooner than later.

He took a deep breath, wishing he had the armor of his Inertia costume.

“I’m from the future,” he’d said. “I’m the genetically engineered clone of Bartholomew Allen the Second, also known as Impulse, and I used to be what you might call a supervillain.”

He paused out of habit, waiting for the reaction.

“Nice to meet you,” May said. “Your name’s Thad, isn’t it?”

“Thad Thaw—”

Thad cut himself off. He wanted to throw up.

He found his cheeks hot, eyes averted—when did he break eye contact? When did he back up as if the maid could hurt him? He bit his lip savagely, then looked her in the eye and enunciated, “Sophos. Thaddeus. Anacletus. Free.”

The maid looked at him and her expression reminded him of Helen. It was—it was—it burned him. She said, “You’ll get used to it.”

And Thad fled.

On Tuesday morning, Thad opened the door of the Plum Room and found a plate of cookies on the floor. Instantly suspicious, he’d immediately gone and asked Joey what they were and who they were from.

“Just cookies, nothing bad,” Joey had signed. “From May, probably.”

“Why?”

Joey shrugged. “A housewarming gift?”

Thad scowled. “A what?”

“A welcome gift,” Joey had explained patiently.

A welcome gift.

As in, a gift from someone who belongs here, to someone who just joined, as a sign of peace and also a way to express the disparity in their resources. May is showing that she can afford to give him a gift.

Yeah, Thad is definitely second in this hierarchy.

He’s tentatively alright with how things are going with May, though. She doesn’t talk to him after that first time. When their paths cross, she just says hello and nods at him, and she doesn’t seem to expect anything of Thad in return.

After so long as a tool, it’s wonderful to not be expected to do anything.

Two more days left. Saturday and Sunday. And Saturday won’t be boring. Joseph is having some of his Titans friends over for “a get-together”. Strictly non-hero-work-related, Joseph assured Thad. Generously, Thad has agreed to let Joseph present him to his friends, even though they all know Wally West.

He won’t be expected to stay with Joseph’s friends long. All he has to do is go say hello and leave. It will be fine.

And then—on Monday—he’ll start college. His official excuse to get out of hero work.

Joseph’s fingers comb through Thad’s hair. Thad leans back into his hand with a sigh. It’s Friday night, and Joseph is braiding his hair before bed.

Joseph stops for a moment, then picks up the actual comb and gives Thad’s hair one last comb-through. He tugs gently, and Thad tilts his head back, giving Joseph access to the hair at his forehead.

This also gives Joseph access to Thad’s throat, of course. Thad thinks of that, head tilted back, eyes closed, feeling Joseph’s fingers tracing firm lines through his hair, gathering logical chunks of his hair for a braid. His throat is totally exposed. A month ago, Thad couldn’t have endured this. He’d have vibrated out of his skin rather than let anyone hold his head by the hair for a prolonged period of time.

Now… Thad thinks of it, and he is deeply, deeply disturbed that he fails to fear properly.

The pressure on his hair lulls him into a trance. He remembers being a very, very young clone rocking himself to sleep in the liquid of the nutrient womb, not even educated enough yet to know what he was instinctively mimicking—human connection.

With a start, Thad remembers his throat tipped up, exposed. He remembers to be afraid. He remembers that he can’t be fully afraid anymore. Not of Joseph, not all the time; he can’t keep it up. Fear, his only lifelong companion, which outlived even CRAYDL, comes and goes.

What is he, without his fear?

Thaddeus tries. He gathers fear in his chest, concentrates hard, feels his heartbeat in his throat.

He is afraid.

Joseph pushes Thad’s head forward so he can reach the hair at the back. Thad puts his chin down obediently. Then he remembers to be afraid.

Something is not right.

He’s happy.

Something isn’t right.

[brown-little-robin]

I miss my clones, I wish I had time to go crazy about them this weekend :{ I wish I could either let go of Strange Redemption or start really writing it again or at Least come to peace with the fact that it's probably not happening until I'm done with college. I wish I was the same person I was when I started writing them. Actually I don't want to be her again, but I'm sorry that person ended up changing and her life became such that they have never properly appeared on paper. I'm sorry clones and I'm sorry clone lovers 😔

[brown-little-robin]

46: Midnight Communications

part one | previous | next | masterlist | ao3 version

Having never possessed anything before, Thaddeus thinks he’s entitled to a little possessiveness.

He whisked all of his belongings into his room at speed as soon as Joseph let him know that his stuff was at the front door. Not a single day into his life with Joseph and he’s already broken his “no running” rule twice. Oh well.

Things are different here. Safer. He can blur the lines between weapon and animal and human, and Joseph doesn’t stop each time and recalculate whether or not Thad needs to be put down.

Thad’s finger is moving in circles on the carpet, a little too roughly, but the texture is so fascinating that he keeps doing it. The sting from his quick metabolism healing him is acceptable. It’s fine. The carpet is very soft. He’s never had a bedroom with carpet before.

He’s glad that Joseph pushed him into the decision of taking the Plum Room. Thad could have done what a good kid would do and sucked it up buttercup (a semi-ironic phrase that CRAYDL picked up somewhere and overused for a few decades when Thad was little, oh, grife, he misses CRAYDL), and picked the obvious correct answer, the one with the cold wooden floor and the harsh sunlight. But he didn’t want to, and Joseph noticed. The man is practically a mind reader. And he doesn’t seem to mind what he sees in Thad.

Anyway, and Thaddeus is just going over the day in his mind in nervous, terrible loops, poking at everything that happened to make sure each event was real and not a deadly mistake—anyway, he’s got his possessions safely into the Plum Room.

He’s lying next to the bed, concealed from the door, surrounded by a little contingent of all his stuffed animals and his glass orb with the manta ray and his sketchbook and a sweater that he took off but didn’t put away. His penguin looked more comfortable sitting on the sweater. He’s pulled the huge, heavy blanket askew from the bed so that it hangs over him, a weight almost like a technoplasm tentacle.

Joseph promised that no one would come in without permission (even the housekeeper). Thad didn’t know there was a housekeeper. He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to treat her, if at all. Maybe there’s a way for him never to meet her. Probably not. There are no replays in real life.

There are no replays.

Thad reaches up to his forehead where the speed force being touched him. He fights another dizzy fit. There’s a reason he’s on the ground and it’s not that he’s tired. It’s that every time he thinks about one of the never-take-back-able things he did today he feels like his inner ears are malfunctioning, sending him crashing out of control. Balance. A critical sense for someone who moves at the speed of light.

Oh sprocking grife he kidnapped Joseph. That was today.

No. No no no no how can he stop thinking about things (HE YELLED AT MAX) so he can go to sleep??

Joseph promised no one would come in. And no one will wake him up in the morning. “Long day,” he’d signed. “Sleep in.”

Thad looks up at the bed. He’s not tired, even though it’s late. The one big window looks out on stars, something he hasn’t seen since he was in the Watchtower. He’d slept all the nights away at Max’s house.

He steps out of his nest without disturbing his creatures. He pads across the carpet to the window. He steadies himself on the window frame.

Organic creaking drifts through the glass. Insect sounds and the shush of trees. Rushing fountain water carries from the other side of the house. It’s dark, but he can see the treeline. The black of the sky is differently textured than the moving dark of the trees, the soft lawn. And stars, uncountable, dizzying, shine overhead like a million billion very far away television screens.

He misses CRAYDL so badly.

The breath puffs steadily in and out of his lungs. He’s too aware of his fingers, the rough wood. He’s awake. He’s alive.

He feels like he should say something.

“CRAYDL, we won,” he says to the lawn.

He thinks he hears a frog, somewhere.

Later, Thaddeus finds himself chewing his lip. He’s been rethinking how he left Max. Cruelly. You don’t want to have to kill me! He doesn’t exactly regret it, but it’s been eating at him like acid. The old man looked stricken. It was satisfying. But he feels a bit sick at the thought that that was his goodbye to Max for good. There is no second and third try to get his goodbye right.

He didn’t even get to hug Helen goodbye. Helen would have wanted to see him.

Hot shame floods his whole body. This is just like when he called Helen a bastard and couldn’t take it back.

Wait. Wait. There was a solution to that problem.

An apology is kind of like a replay, isn’t it?

Thaddeus hesitates. His phone, in the pocket of his pajama pants, suddenly feels like it’s digging into his thigh. He pulls it out and holds it in his hands.

He doesn’t think he can handle calling Max. Not tonight, with all this energy that would just go into “biting Max’s head off”, as the old man would put it. But maybe… maybe texting…?

He opens the phone and starts typing. Stops. Deletes. Types again. As long as he doesn’t press send too soon, there are replays on this kind of communication.

I’m sorry I yelled at you today and didn’t wait until later so I could say goodbye to you and Helen. I don’t take anything back. The other Inertias didn’t deserve to die. But if you forgive me, I’d like to see Helen again sometime and say goodbye the right way.

…

Of course, Thad. Any time.

…

Thad drops the phone and lets it buzz one more time. He doesn’t check it; he’s dizzy again, this time with relief.

He looks at the stars, neck craned awkwardly but bearably, and feels his body relaxing. He’s getting tired. But as the thought occurs to him, something seems wrong about it. He’s tired, but not that tired. His awareness is sharp and double-layered as always, with only the slight cognitive delay brought on by a particularly intense training session.

He knows this body.

When he turns his head, the drag and swish of his long hair surprises him. He was expecting short hair.

He has returned to his physiological baseline, he realizes.

Centuries of learning his own body inform him that he’s exhausted, as after a long day of physical training. He feels like he could hook himself up to the nutrient womb and sleep this lethargy into nonexistence. It’s… exhilarating.

The exhaustion is gone.

Since when? Thad thinks back urgently. This morning, he was heavy with the usual exhaustion. The speed force gave him that insane burst of energy, and then he went back to normal again.

Normal again. Tired from the exertion and stress of the day, but normal. Normal for Thaddeus Thawne, best clone ever made, not normal for Thad Free, useless ruin of a speedster existing for no purpose in a fog of depression.

Thad stares sightlessly at the stars, mind racing. This is huge. This could be it. If this lasts—grife, he hopes this lasts. He hopes—maybe—maybe going back to the speed force fixed him.

Thaddeus could be good again. He could be useful.

He was expelled from the speed force all wrong, broken, powers all messed up, moving at 0.25 of timeline normal speed. He had to go to the Watchtower to be fixed, and that was only for his chronological misalignment. They told him that there was some kind of disease in the speed force itself, that it affected all speedsters, not just him. Is he just… the last one to have his connection to the speed force fully healed?

No, that can’t be right. He shouldn’t be alive. He died.

It has to be the work of that… that thing in the speed force. The more he thinks about it, the less he feels right calling it a spirit. It wasn’t. It was too much for that, too many voices layered in its child’s voice. There was a sense of rushing, multilayered reality in it, like a teleportation hoop in the shape of a humanoid, like twelve or fifteen virtual reality copies of the same speedster. What was it? Why did it call him Beloved?

Great. More things to keep him awake. Thaddeus groans and pushes himself up to his hands and knees, goes and gets his toothbrush, and gets ready for bed in the upstairs bathroom.

By the time he’s done, the whirling of his mind has died down again. He has no answers. He’s going to sleep.

He supposes he should try to sleep in the bed, tonight, instead of starting a habit of sleeping on the floor again.

That’s all right. The purple of the quilts reminds him of the nutrient womb, the black of the bedposts of the black behind his eyelids, just after he closes his eyes and just before the VR kicks in. The heavy blankets are like CRAYDL, if CRAYDL was an inanimate object and not a living, talking, wise-cracking…

Thad misses CRAYDL.

Thad gathers up his stuffed animals. He puts the snow leopard and penguin closest to him, and the seal, which Helen gave him, gets tucked into the blankets on the other side of the bed. The sloth with velcro on its hands he hangs, after some deliberation, on the bedpost closest to his head.

Good.

But he can’t get rid of the last remnants of nerves until he checks the last message.

I love you. —Max.

Thad chokes on that, a little.

People keep telling him that today.

He climbs into bed and huddles under the covers, slightly miserable, but satisfied. It was a long day, full of very confusing incidents and… miscalculations. But that’s life now. Set on hard mode. No replays.

At two in the morning, he kicks the blankets off of everything but his feet.

[brown-little-robin]

I think given time and a stable life, Thad could grow enough to accept Bart, but also: Thad isn’t the only problem here.

Bart was replaced, and no one noticed but Carol. In fact, Max showered Thad with praise. There’s a whole thing in Impulse about Bart feeling like Thad was a better Bart than Bart was. And Bart saw Thad nearly kill Max. I know Bart is a forgiving and live-in-the-moment person, but he does have a memory, and underneath his cheer—even if he genuinely does want to connect with Thad—there has to be some hurt.

It’s not going to be perfect right away.

🔥

Accepting || Send 🔥 for an opinion (add a topic or leave it blank and I’ll rant about Thad, or request Thad to rant about something. I'm game for anything).

@fatummortem

I'm actually not a big fan of Thad and Bart having an immediate, on good-terms, sibling relationship. Especially with Impulse-era Bart and Thad.

I personally don't like the immediate nature and immediate acceptance between the two I see with the general interpretation of them mostly because I think Thad's still got a lot of stuff to work through since he is a clone, specifically Bart's clone, which wouldn't make for the most comfortable living situation if he went to live with Max. I know Bart can accept Thad during this era, but Thad's not like Bart and it's going to take time.

However, I do think they could come to a understanding with each other, but over time and through work! I like seeing the reluctance on Thad's part, him growing past how he was initial raised, coming to understand his own feelings, in order for them to come a sort of an understanding.

I also just like seeing the growth of it being over a longer span of time or post-Kid Zoom/F:FMA/Rogues Revenge. I know everyone hates Rogues Revenge and Flash: FMA (I do too), but It has a lot of potential with Thad's character. The comics were bad, but I also don't like them being straight up ignored nowadays because they do have a bit of potential and they also allow for a sort of restart between Thad and Bart after their deaths. Thad can absolutely learn from his actions and realize everything that he thought he wanted (Bart's death) wasn't worth it or what he wanted. (I have a whole different rant/discussion regarding that).

Post Bart and Thad's deaths I would love to see them coming to a slow progression of understanding between them. Thad would understand that killing Bart. He can apologize for what he's done, maybe Bart can understand in part that being his clone is hard, sure it won't heal anything in the beginning but it's recognition, and maybe afterwards they can begin a sort of healing/reluctant relationship with each other. Once things get sorta good between them it's more of a petty-sibling relationship. And personally it's a more satisfying relationship for me.

[brown-little-robin]

45: The Dark Bedroom

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“They killed the others. Did you know that?”

Thad’s expression is far away, troubled. Joseph mentally freezes, but he nods calmly. This is a time to listen without judgment.

“It was self-defense,” Thad says, very low and quiet.

Joseph lets the silence spin out. Thad’s fingers dig cruelly into his leg. If only Joey knew what was going on in his head, he could help.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. Yes.”

Joey waits, silently willing him to put words to his distress so that he can help him.

After a minute, he rasps, “I’m just… I don’t…” Joseph watches him struggle for words—and fail. “I don’t have enough information to draw conclusions.”

Oh well. He has his whole life to work through his trauma. Joseph signs, “OK. Do you want a hug?”

Thad laughs disbelievingly, but he accepts the offer.

Thad is silent and limp as a doll in Joseph’s hands. This would be a very concerning sign from anyone but Thad, but Joseph knows him well enough by now to know that he’s just… deeply, deeply tired. And touch-starved.

The boy’s head falls back against Joseph’s shoulder. His eyes are closed. For all the world, he looks like he’s asleep or dissociating, but Joseph can tell he’s not.

…How can he tell Thad’s still fully aware? Joseph checks again, not moving a muscle, and again he just knows that Thad is awake—awake and feeling safe.

Is this what it is to be a lightning rod? Is it a form of mild telepathy? Does it go both ways? How is Thad going to feel about this? This can't be ethical, but is any solution to Thad's illegal and uncomfortable situation perfectly ethical? Not really.

They’ll just have to learn to live with it.

A sudden buzzing breaks their silence. Joseph’s awareness of Thad fills with panic. Thad jolts and scrambles for his pocket, vibrating. Joseph lets him slide out of the hug, but stays close beside him for support. Thad fishes his flip phone out of his pocket and fumbles with it.

Joseph sees him slam the phone onto the floor, lean on it with both hands, and take a deep breath. The phone is thrumming slowly against the tiles—

And that’s when Joseph realizes that they’re both channeling the speed force. He’s seeing the phone ring in slow motion.

Thad is pressing it against the floor with both hands like he’s trying to smother it, and he’s still shaking, but he's breathing calmly, eyes closed almost serenely. Joey breathes with him, taking the opportunity to calm down. Everything is fine.

After a minute, Thad shifts position. He leans on one hand, picks up the lethargically buzzing phone, and clicks the button on the side. The caller id says “Max”.

Thad doesn’t answer it. He sighs shakily. Joseph sighs too, catching the gesture like a yawn.

“You’re doing it again,” Thad says, not looking at Joseph. “Channeling my lightning.”

Joseph nods. Thad turns minutely to look at him out of the corner of his eye. Joseph reaches out with that new instinctive sense of Thad’s emotional state, and feels—

racing heartbeat.

With a horrible jolt, Joseph remembers that Thad left Max partially because he was afraid of people with super-speed. He's scared. Of Joey.

Joseph is also suddenly aware of how close he is to the child, physically. Leaning over him. He freezes, unsure what will help. Backing away too fast might just make Thad feel rejected.

Acknowledging it. Acknowledging it would help. He sits back carefully and signs, “Am I scaring you?”

Thad swallows. “No more than usual.”

Joseph hides a flinch. He wasn’t aware that he, personally, scared Thad. He thought Thad’s general anxiety was just… general… anxiety.

Thad hunches over the phone like an animal staying low to the ground. He's looking at Joey out of the corner of his eye, not moving his head.

“I’m sorry,” Joseph tells him.

“Don't be. Your speed is strategically essential.”

Joey reaches to touch the boy's shoulder as if to confer strength upon him, and Thad flinches. Joey stops.

“You reminded me of CRAYDL,” Thaddeus adds, still watching him cautiously. “Looming like that. CRAYDL did that. I don’t mind.”

The affection in Thad’s voice surprises Joseph, combined with this acute wariness. What was CRAYDL like, to make Thad feel so at home with being “loomed” over? Joseph hates to think it, but… it couldn’t have been good.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. I’m used to it.”

Thad’s eyes flick to the phone and back to Joseph. Joseph wants badly to ask Thad more, but the phone is still ringing in Thad’s hands. He signs, “Do you want to answer that?”

“Yes.”

He doesn’t open the phone.

“Do you want me to leave while you—”

Thad shakes his head hard. Joseph nods. “Take your time.”

Thad nods. He sits back in a more comfortable position and just… breathes a bit more, and after a minute, Joseph hears the phone’s ringing speeding up with each exhale.

Finally, they're both at what seems to be normal speed again. Thad flips the phone open. He puts it to his ear.

“Max.”

A pause. Thad glances at Joseph, then away. His face twists in response to something Joseph can’t hear.

“I’m not your ‘kiddo’.”

Whatever Max says next makes Thad flinch hard. But when he speaks, his voice is only and exactly as tense as normal.

“Yes. Fine.”

He really is a good actor, Joseph realizes. But it’s costing him, doing this—it must be. Joseph holds out his hand and raises his eyebrows. Do you want me to take the phone?

Stark relief. Thad says “Here’s Joseph” and slaps the phone into Joseph’s hand at just enough above normal speed that it stings. Before a second passes, Joseph finds his text-to-speech equipment in his other hand and sees Thad sit down a few feet away and put his hands over his ears.

Strangely, this makes Joseph feel better about scaring Thad. At least he doesn’t make Thad hunch over and cover his ears like that. Small victories, right?

Joseph wonders uneasily how often he reminds Thad of CRAYDL, and why.

He takes it easy on them both after that.

It’s been a long day.

Thad follows Joseph passively to the other side of the second floor, accepting Joseph’s explanation that he gets to pick his own bedroom. He’s seen the White Room and the Green Room. The Mustard Room is a study, not suitable to be a bedroom. The three rooms available for Thad’s bedroom are the Scarlett Room, the Plum Room, and the Peacock Room. Joseph is interested to see which he’ll choose. Not the red room, definitely. But plum or peacock… Joseph has no idea which way Thad will choose. The other one, of course, will be Joseph’s room.

He introduces the rooms by signing, “There’s three bedrooms available—”

“Scarlett, Plum, and Peacock.”

Joseph lifts his eyebrows at Thad, surprised. The boy grins. “I’ve played Clue, remember? It’s simple.”

“And you figured it out!” Joseph grins at him.

Thad’s grin goes crooked and genuine. Joseph leads him to the first door and opens it halfway, showing Thad the interior without letting him in.

The Scarlett Room is one of the tower rooms, and if Joseph is being honest, he’d have to admit that it’s one of his least favorite rooms in the house. The concept of a red room is fine, but it wasn’t well executed. The warm brown walls have so much red light reflecting on them that they look red themselves. Theoretically, the four tower windows should make the room cheery and bright, but the light is drowned in red hangings, red bed linens, maroon rugs redundantly placed on a red carpet… scarlet everywhere. It’s overpowering. To Joseph’s eyes, it looks like a bloodbath.

From the way Thad hisses, it looks that way to him too.

Joseph shuts the door.

“Creepy!” he signs cheerfully.

“That can’t be normal,” Thad says, sounding vaguely impressed.

Joseph snorts and shakes his head. He can’t imagine any normal interior decorator deciding to do that with a room.

“That’s a no, then?” Joseph signs dryly.

“…Correct,” Thad says. He keeps glancing at the door, looking like he can’t believe what he just saw. “I wasn’t going to take the Scarlett Room anyway, but that looks like a bloodbath.”

Joseph nods emphatically. Thad glances at the door again, shock giving way to a disbelieving smile.

“I would wake up thinking I was Bart, living in that room.”

Oh. Joseph hadn’t thought of that. The colors of Impulse’s costume are white and red.

He takes too long to respond.

Thad gives Joseph a strange, bitter look, like he’s daring Joseph to say something. Joseph shrugs at him. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say to that, and neither does Thad.

They move on.

Joseph opens the door of the Plum Room all the way and actually steps in this time. Thad follows him.

It’s a comfortable room, the Plum Room. It’s darker than the Scarlet Room, both because it only has one window and because the dark purple walls absorb light. The cornice and trimmings are cream colored, the bed black with an oversized quilt and golden pillows. Everything is vaguely corduroy-textured, soft but firm. Luxurious. Joseph always used to think it was a room fit for a crown prince. And it was Grant’s bedroom, after all.

He looks down at Thad. The boy is looking around, pupils wide and dark. After a moment, Thad starts walking around the room, cat-silent and graceful on the thick carpet. He glances back at Joseph regularly, as if to check that he’s staying within bounds, but he’s clearly fascinated by the room. He moves around it, looking now up to the ceiling and now crouching to look under the divan. His hair matches the creamy trimming, Joseph notices. A perfect yellow-purple complimentary color scheme.

The boy reaches out to touch the bed and stops quickly.

Joseph snaps his fingers. Thad jumps guiltily and looks at Joseph’s hands.

Joseph signs, “You can touch things. It’s fine.”

Thad mirrors the sign for touch, a hesitant look on his face. Joseph mirrors it back and nods. Thad turns and brushes his hand over the puffy quilt, barely disturbing its sleek surface. Then he turns and goes to the wall and presses his hand against it. He touches the divan, and the bedside table, and the lamp. His fingers are very careful and gentle.

Joseph covers his mouth with his hand. It just occurred to him that Thad only has two way of touching things: over-cautiously, as if he might break them just by existing too much, or violently. There’s no in-between.

He’s that way with people, too.

Thad doesn’t notice Joseph having a moment, thankfully. He’s too busy kneeling and brushing his fingertips against the carpet, rubbing one thick strand of plum-colored carpet between his fingers.

Joseph masters his face and waits until Thad turns around.

“Do you like it?”

“Yeah. It’s good.” Thad looks around the Plum Room again. He adds analytically, “I prefer dark things and enclosed spaces.”

And again, Joseph is left wondering about Thad’s childhood and knowing this is not the right time to ask. For someone who named himself “Free”, Thad draws a surprising amount of comfort from being contained.

He’ll probably like this room best, then. It’s… not exactly small, but smaller than the tower rooms, and it does hold a dark, quiet kind of peace. Thad would fit in here.

Still, Joseph wants to show him the Peacock Room. It was his room, growing up, and he likes it. Besides, the tour wouldn’t be complete without the northeast tower room.

Without speaking about it, he and Thad end up outside the door to the last room. Joey opens the door and steps in. He smiles.

There are four windows in Joey's old bedroom. Three normal ones on the walls, and one small one on the roof, slanted like it can’t decide whether to be a regular window or a skylight. The walls are medium blue, the floor wood, the curtains white. It used to live up to its Peacock Room name, but now the only remnants of the rich, dark peacock-green decor are a few sea-green pillows. The bed has its own tucked-away nook in the corner; the main area is more open, brighter, with an old wooden trunk and a sheepskin rug in the middle. Joey changed the ostentatious Peacock Room to a simple blue room while he was living there. All of the bedrooms were so dark; he wanted something brighter, happier.

Thad hasn’t come out from behind Joey yet. Less interested in this room than the Plum Room, evidently. Yes, Joey thinks, this will be his bedroom again, and he looks around again at the rough furniture and smiles.

And then he looks down at Thad and re-evaluates.

The boy is staring up at the skylight in something like wonder. His hands are clasped behind his back in a way that would look polite if his fingers weren’t digging so sharply into his muscle.

Thad catches Joseph looking at him.

“There’s four windows,” he says.

Joseph smiles. “Nice, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Thad takes a small step to nowhere in particular, and stops. “CRAYDL didn’t have any windows.”

Yes, Joey remembers the lair. There was absolutely no natural light in that place.

Thad briefly meets Joseph’s eyes and then looks away like the eye contact burned.

“I only saw sunlight in virtual reality, and did you know you can’t actually feel two different temperatures at the same time in that VR equipment? The liquid is either warm or cold, no mixtures. You can’t feel cold on your back and warm on your face; you have to choose one or the other. I never felt sunlight there. I didn’t know what it was like until I came out to fight Bart. I thought I did, from the virtual reality, but—”

Oh. Oh. “That’s awful.”

“I know,” Thad says, with a choked sort of laugh.

Joseph laughs silently back. What else is there to do?

Well, he can figure out Thad’s bedroom situation, for one thing. He signs, “I don’t know what will be best for you—”

“Neither do I,” Thad interrupts with a grin.

Joseph smiles. “I mean for your bedroom.”

Thad hesitates.

The sunlight illuminates every pore on his face, and it throws the dark circles under his eyes into stark contrast. It makes him look even more tired than usual.

“I… I like this room.”

“It’s okay if you like the Plum Room better.”

“I don’t! I like this room, it’s… it’s good, it’s got windows, it’s…”

“Too much light?” Joseph guesses.

Thad looks torn. He glances up at the skylight again. He does not squint against the light, although his pupils shrink to tiny dots.

“No…”

Joey is starting to see what’s going on, he thinks. Thad thinks that he should want this room, because it’s bright and cheerful and normal. But he doesn’t want it. He wants the Plum Room, where he feels comfortable.

“The Peacock Room used to be my bedroom,” he tells Thad.

“Really?” Thad glances around again.

“Yes! That’s why it’s so bright. It used to be dark green, but I asked my mother to change it because I like to have good lighting for my art. I switched the blue curtains for white ones. And we tore out the carpet and installed wood.”

“Good choices,” Thad says quietly.

Joseph smiles at him. “Thank you.”

Thad’s smile goes crooked in that strange, sincere way of his.

“You don’t have to like it better just because it’s bright, though,” Joey tells him. “That’s my preference.”

“I do like it.” Thad glares at him defensively.

“That doesn’t mean you have to live in it. It can be my room.”

“Yours?”

“I do need to sleep,” Joseph points out. “Whichever room you don’t pick will be my bedroom.”

“I pick the Plum Room, then,” Thad says instantly.

Joey tilts his head at him. “Are you sure…?”

“You’re the one who was trying to talk me into the Plum Room two seconds ago,” Thad points out sarcastically. “Yes, I’m sure. You shouldn’t be in the Plum Room; that’s ridiculous. You shouldn’t have even given me a choice.”

Joey is about to tell him that he wants to give him a choice, but then the boy admits, quieter, “I don’t think I could sleep very well in here.”

He nods, understanding.

“Sleep is healing to the spirit.”

Smoothly, Thad agrees, “Every growing weapon needs sleep.”

And Joey knows it’s deadpan humor. He knows. But his heart—and hands—move faster than his caution: “You’re not a weapon.”

For a split second, Thad looks like he’s going to go defensive, lip curling—and then he looks into Joseph’s eyes, hesitates, and subsides.

“I know. That’s why I’m here.”

He closes his eyes. In here, with the sharp light purpling the bags under his eyes, he looks as weary as a statue of a veteran.

Joseph thinks he’s done speaking, and then he speaks, eyes still closed, cutting Joseph off from responding until Thad chooses to look at him again.

“I’m not. A weapon. But I still act like a weapon sometimes. I can’t help it. Is that… a problem? I mean—” Thad opens his eyes again, but he’s staring past Joseph’s shoulder. “I can’t even… take the right bedroom.”

Joseph snaps his fingers. Thad’s attention snaps back to his hands.

“Listen,” Joseph signs. “That doesn’t matter. Not even a little, tiny bit. Pick the bedroom you can sleep in. Make jokes if you want to. I don’t mind.”

“Even morbid ones?” Thad asks, spitting the words like a snake darting out in a warning challenge.

“Even morbid ones.”

Thad stares at him.

“Just because I don’t make morbid jokes doesn’t mean I don’t get them,” Joey points out.

“Yeah,” Thad says slowly. “I’ve noticed. It’s interesting.”

Better interested than scared. Joseph smiles.

Thad smiles back.

[brown-little-robin]

44: Chapter One

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Safe.

Safe.

The room where Thad found Joseph is bright, with a skylight like the one in the pool room downstairs, and the light reflects from a white floor, white walls, white ceiling. And paintings. They’re Joseph’s work. Thad knows it instinctively, even before he notices the faces of Joseph’s mother and his former vigilante associates in some of them. It’s the colors that gave it away, Thad thinks, vibrant even in the paintings of dull subject matter. Prosaic pears become golden-green delicacies; skies become blue-green heavens; normal human faces glow with warm red and yellow and shades of purple and blue. Joseph’s work is an effusion of color and light that Thad couldn’t pull from his imagination if his life depended on it.

Thad doesn’t know how he found Joseph. Homing instinct, he supposes. This is what it is to have a lightning rod, he supposes.

He can’t breathe right, his nose is so squashed against Joseph’s chest. He’s just… he’s so relieved.

He clenches his fists in the back of Joseph’s shirt. Never, he thinks, never, never will he betray Joseph.

Joseph squeezes Thad so tight Thad’s ribs hurt. Thad takes a shallow breath, straining his ribcage against Joseph’s hands, and Joseph releases him, steps back and signs, “You okay?”

“Yeah.” Thad lets out a big sigh. The tension of the hug goes with it. He’s still a little numb, still what Max would call “shell-shocked”, and he’s trembling a little despite the warmth of this room, but he’s okay. He’s safe here.

“What happened?”

“I ran away.”

Thaddeus pauses for a shocked reaction, an old habit hardwired into him. As he expected, Joseph’s eyes grow wide. It pleases him, in a sick kind of way.

He explains, “I yelled at Max.”

Joseph asks, “It went so badly that you ran away?”

“It wasn’t that bad. The argument. It was about my brothers.”

“Bart?” Joseph spells.

“No, the other… clones,” Thad says with something like distaste. Abruptly, he doesn’t feel like standing anymore. He sits down on the white-tiled floor and clasps his arms around his knee.

Joseph follows him down and leans against one of the cupboards that line the walls of this room. Thad sighs.

Joseph doesn’t seem like he’s going to say anything, so Thad says, “They killed the others. Did you know that?”

Joseph nods.

“It was self-defense,” Thad admits quietly.

He’s sure it was self-defense. That’s… the whole point of Inertia. To force the Flash into lose-lose situations. If the Flash dies, fine, a win for the Thawnes. If Inertia dies, the Flash killed another Thawne, and it’s another grievance against the Flash. Another meaningless reason to be angry.

Thad is angry, but not at Max. Not really. He’s not even angry at the Flash anymore. He’s angry that there’s been so much death for nothing.

Thad digs his fingers into his leg, feeling the denseness of his living muscle. His body is a miracle and he doesn’t know the point of it. The spirit in the speed force sent him back, alive—why?

Beloved.

If he is beloved of the speed force, why didn’t the speed force keep him?

He shuts his eyes. He never met the other clones in the speed force, and he doesn’t know why. He didn’t even get a sense of any presence other than Barry Allen and certain other adult spirits. Maybe the other clones just got absorbed. In which case, why didn’t he? Was he too stubborn? If he’d let the lightning and wind kill him immediately, would there have been peace afterwards? Did the speed force spit him out because he was annoying it, a little knot of anger and selfishness in its vast expanse? But the spirit said beloved, and he got the feeling that it wasn’t speaking on its own behalf.

A snap of fingers brings him out of his miserable reverie. Joseph asks, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” Thad says automatically. Then, “Yes.”

He stops. Joseph waits.

There’s too much to talk about. He can’t get any of it out.

“I’m just… I don’t…” He struggles to find something he could say that would explain this knot of bitterness in him. It’s too complicated. He falls back on an old phrase he used with CRAYDL: “I don’t have enough information to draw conclusions.”

“OK. Do you want a hug?”

Thad laughs. Ridiculous. As if the injustice and confusion of it all could be put off with a hug.

He does kind of want a hug, though.

He nods. Joseph slides over next to him and wraps him up. Thad lets his bodyweight rest limp against Joseph’s shoulder.

It does make him feel better, weirdly enough. The clones are dead at the hands of the Flash, but Thad isn’t in the hands of the Flash anymore.

[brown-little-robin]

42: Dog with Two Owners

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Thad wakes up blearily. It’s really bright. His head hurts. He groans and throws his elbow over his eyes. He must have fallen asleep outside the nutrient womb. Feels like he’s laying on a computer or something.

“CRAYDL, turn down the lights.”

Silence.

Max Mercury’s voice says, “Are you awake?”

Oh.

“Yes.”

He keeps his elbow over his eyes. His cheeks are burning. Where is he and who just heard him talking to CRAYDL? The last thing he remembers is being on Joseph’s lap in the lair. Did he lose time, or just fall asleep?

Thad sits up and eases his arm away from his face, letting his eyes adjust to the sunlight. He’s above ground somewhere he doesn’t recognize, surrounded by concrete blocks and rubble. Max and Joseph are looking at him searchingly. He suppresses the urge to hide his face again.

The surrounding pile of rubble looks like the aftermath of a fight or something, but Max and Joseph seem calm.

Joseph smiles at him and signs, “You fell asleep. I texted Max to come get us.”

No fight, then. Good. Relieved, Thad allows the adults to coddle him.

Max holds out his hand, and Thad lets the man pull him upright. Joseph asks if he can touch him, and when Thad nods, Joseph hugs him. Not just a quick hug, either. Joseph holds onto him. Thad buries his face in Joseph’s shirt. He feels hidden. Safe, for the moment.

Max asks, “How are you feeling?”

“Fine.” Thad reluctantly disengages from Joseph. “I can’t tell if the experiment did anything permanent to me.”

The white lightning has died down to his usual yellow, and the unnatural happiness is gone. Thad reaches for the void in his chest, the thing that Raven said was where a lightning rod was supposed to go, and can’t even tell if it’s there. He just feels embarrassed, and, under that, empty. Empty, empty.

His CRAYDL is dead and Thad isn’t even mourning it. Doesn’t have the capacity.

Thad is so close to being safe from the Allens forever. All he has to do is go to Doctor Morlo to get examined, which was part of several agreements he had to make to get this far. And then, provided his new lightning rod isn’t killing him, he can move in with Joseph. Today.

“Can you bring me to the lab, sir?”

“Of course. Come on.”

Max holds his hands out. Thad approaches him, conscious of Joseph watching. He hates this. He feels like a dog with two owners. Who is he supposed to obey? Who is he supposed to wag his tail for?

He allows Max to pick him up and carry him to Morlo’s lab. Max sets him down on the exam table and touches his cheek gently. Torn between the instinct to flinch back and the aching emptiness that makes him want to lean in, Thad just freezes. Max smiles sadly.

“You did good. I’ll be back soon.”

It takes longer than Thad expected for Max to return. He looks around the lab, idly refreshing himself on the equipment layout, and wonders what Max is doing. Probably reporting to the other speedsters. Bringing Joseph back to the house, too. There’s no reason for Joseph to be in Nevada when Thad will be delivered to his house soon enough.

Examination, then goodbyes to Max and Helen, then being taken to Joseph’s house. Then he can relax.

Thad shivers. It’s cold down in the lab with only a t-shirt and shorts.

Doctor Morlo comes in at last, clumping heavily down the stairs. Alone. He sets down his suitcase with a huge sigh.

“Well, boy,” he says. “You survived.”

“I survived,” Thad agrees.

Morlo nods. Then he puts his hands on his hips and stretches, grumbling quietly. Thad is content to watch.

“How do you feel?”

“Full report?” Thad isn't really feeling up to all the joking he usually does with Morlo, but he's content enough to relish the words. He likes play-acting, too serious or too casual, around Doctor Morlo. The "doctor" gets it.

“Full report,” Morlo agrees.

“Physically undamaged. No bones broken, no muscles torn, no nerve damage that I can tell. But I was hit by lightning, so it’s worth running a test, probably.”

“What about your powers?”

“I don’t know definitively yet. I need to do more testing. They changed… not permanently, though, I think.”

Thad tells Morlo about speaking to the spirits. He describes, as best as he can, the spirit that took him into the blank white space and then touched him, throwing him back into physical space. He leaves out the part where it called him beloved. That’s… private.

“My trace lightning was white for a few minutes. You know—what sparks from speedsters as they move?”

“I know. Is it back to yellow now?”

“Yes.” Thad frowns at his hands. “I think I was faster with the white lightning. Fast enough to outrun Wally West, although of course his top speed varies based on his emotional state. And I was… I was so happy…”

Thad’s throat closes up.

Morlo clears his throat loudly and clumps over to his minifridge. He tosses Thad an apple juice over his shoulder.

Thad catches it perfectly, of course. He tears the little plastic opening with his fingernail. Destroying something helps him focus again.

Morlo asks, “Any guesses about why?”

“Because I wasn’t afraid. I think I wasn’t physically capable of fear right then.”

“I meant the powers, but good to know.”

Thad flushes. “Right. I… I don’t know, but I felt like the white lightning was a gift. From the spirit.”

“You’re catching Mercury’s Zen thing,” Doctor Morlo grunts.

“I am not!”

Morlo shrugs. “I’m joking. Anyway, electricity overload, possible nerve damage, and your powers changed? Sounds like we should run a plate test.”

Morlo hooks the metal plate he uses to test Thad’s vibrational and speed abilities to one of his machines. Thad follows his directions perfectly, as always. His powers are working perfectly, forcing the world slower and faster at Thad’s whims. His lightning sparks and shines as poison-yellow as ever. It’s a relief.

Morlo starts to put the plate away, then turns around abruptly.

“Wait. You were hungry?”

“Yes. I ate… fourteen food packs.”

“How big?”

Thad gestures with his hands. “About the size of a 21st century granola bar.”

Morlo frowns. “Hmm. It could be the massive energy expenditure of communicating with this “spirit” of yours. Or your heat-shield aura trying to protect you from the lightning tunnel. On the other hand… it could be a symptom of something… bigger.”

Thad’s stomach sinks. He should have realized hunger was a bad sign. Being hungry is not normal for him anymore.

“You’re right. I haven’t had much of an appetite since I was in the speed force,” he confirms, and then realizes that he’ll have to distinguish his… reappearance… in June from his recent brush with the speed force. “I mean, since I…”

“Ran away?”

Thad winces. He can’t exactly refute that.

“You make it sound so petty!”

Morlo shrugs. “If you have a better thing to call it, let me know.”

Thad sits silent. Everything he can think to call it would be… dramatic. ‘Revoking my existence’ would be most accurate… ‘running away’ will do fine.

Morlo puts the plate away.

“I need your blood. I’ll run some tests.”

Thad straps his arm into the cuffs and strains to keep himself at normal speed. He hates feeling the needle go in, and the weird coldness of getting his blood drawn disturbs him. He’d rather just cut himself and let the wound drain, but Green Lantern was disturbed when he did that in the Watchtower.

Morlo holds up the vial of blood and grins at it.

“Mad scientist,” Thad teases him.

Morlo guffaws. “Little villain.”

Thad grins.

Doctor Morlo separates his blood into several vials, then pours some of it into what looks like a bunsen burner. Thad could come over and watch, but honestly, he’s tired. His own inertia keeps him lying on the exam table, waiting.

“So, Max tells me you still have that Inertia suit.”

Thad tenses. His arm pulls against the cuffs again, not vibrating, just digging the metal into his arm.

“Yes.”

“Ever think about trying it on again?”

“No!”

Thad stares at Morlo’s back, feeling nauseous. What did he do wrong? Why would Doctor Morlo think he wanted to be Inertia again?

“No,” Thad says, quieter, uncomfortably aware of how rough—how evil—his voice sounds. “I don’t want to be Inertia. I swear.”

“I said trying it on, not being Inertia.” Morlo looks at Thad over his shoulder. He doesn’t look angry, just curious. “No interest in spandex at all, though? Not even to make your own vigilante identity?”

Thad hesitates.

“I… I don’t…”

If these metal restraints were any sharper, he’d be bleeding. It feels far away. He’s staring at the back of Morlo’s white coat, only half perceiving it.

“I don’t know… I’m… useful, I know I could be useful, hypothetically. I’d be an incredible asset. But… even the issue of running aside, I don’t… want to.”

Pathetic.

“What if I hurt someone? Or what if the Flash got angry at me, or… I don’t want to put myself in a position to make a catastrophic mistake. I’d be done for.”

But Thad would be lying to himself if he said he hadn’t… thought about it. Being… a hero. Being someone useful, confident, adored.

He got a taste of the hero life when he was Bart. He loved being “Impulse”. It was so much better than being Bart Allen. He was fast, he was strong, he had a team and a mentor… everyone trusted him…

Foolish fantasies. Thad Thawne was ruined for that a long time ago.

Morlo sets the blood carefully in a rack in the fridge, then comes back and releases the restraints. Thaddeus swings his legs off the bed, grabs his arm, and squeezes where the upper restraint was, just below the elbow. The dull, bruise-like pain gives him something to focus on. Anything is better than the purposeless void of his new life.

Doctor Morlo heaves himself up onto the bed beside Thad. Thad freezes.

Morlo says, “All I’m saying is, it would be good to get you moving again. I’m not trying to pressure you into being a hero or anything. But you need the exercise.”

Thad flinches at the reminder of his failure to keep his body at full functionality. He’s been trying not to think about that.

“You’re a speedster. You have to run. For your health.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“I just can’t!” Thad snaps. “I know I ran away today, but I wasn’t in my right mind. Running triggers my fight-or-flight response. I can’t let that happen.”

“Work up to it, then.”

Thad shakes his head.

“I can’t do it.”

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

Thad laughs. “I murder someone and get executed for it? It’s not some kind of social anxiety keeping me from going for a nice little run, Morlo. I’m dangerous.”

“Dangerous my sweet butt,” Morlo growls. “Boy, just say you’re traumatized.”

“What’s the difference?” Thad snaps. “I still can’t run.”

Morlo turns and grabs Thad’s shoulders, forcing him to look into his face. Thad goes very tense, heart hammering.

“Listen, boy,” Morlo growls. “You and I are a lot alike, which is how I know you’re making a huge mistake.”

Thad tries to say “Let me go!”, but all that comes out is a whine. Morlo’s hands squeeze his shoulders harder.

“You are making your life into a big drama about mortal enemies and living weapons. It doesn’t have to be that way. Got that?”

Morlo lets him go. Thad covers his face. His arms are shaking.

After a minute, he can speak again. “I’m not like you! You were never a weapon!”

“I don’t have as much excuse as you, but I certainly was a weapon. You studied me, didn’t you?”

Yes, he did, but… well… maybe they are similar. Thad has to admit that Morlo is just as much a potential killer as he is. He was going to kill Max, even.

Morlo huffs.

“Look. You don’t have to start running if it’s that upsetting to you. But you have to know you're allowed to be a person. Pete's sake, boy, your family's not going to kill you if you slip up a bit.”

“Yes they will. I want them to.”

“Thad,” Morlo growls, and Thad glares at him through his fingers. This is about that stupid ‘suicidal’ thing again, isn’t it? Why is Morlo so bent on deciding that Thad’s suicidal?! It’s ridiculous!

“I don’t want to die,” he snarls, hating that he even has to say that. CRAYDL would be disappointed in him for sinking to the point where that’s even in question. “But I can’t be allowed to kill people. I made Max promise he’d kill me if I was going to.”

“This is above my pay grade,” Morlo groans. He gets off the table and goes to the stairs.

“MAX!” he hollers. “A little help here!”

Max appears at the top of the stairs, calm and elegant as always, and Thad sighs in equal parts frustration and relief. Max will know how to explain.

“Max, tell Doctor Morlo I can’t be allowed to kill people,” he demands.

Max gives Morlo a look. Thad waits.

Morlo tells Max, “He thinks you’re just waiting around to kill him or something.”

Thad is offended on Max’s behalf. “I’m trying to tell Morlo that you promised you’d kill me if you had to. He doesn’t believe me!”

“Ah.”

Thad rests his hands on his thighs, waiting for the sweet triumph of being proven right.

“I did tell him I’d stop him if I absolutely had to, in order to save lives,” Max tells Morlo pointedly. “But clearly something got lost in translation.”

Oh no.

Max comes down the stairs and makes eye contact with Thad. Thad looks away. He can’t do the emotional openness thing right now, not while being reprimanded for whatever it was that he misunderstood.

“I’m not going to kill you for making a mistake,” Max tells him. “And neither will Wally, or Jay, or Jessie, or Bart, or anyone else. We don’t kill in revenge, Thad, or as a punishment. We only take a life to save a life. As long as you didn’t mean to hurt anyone else, no one would hurt you.”

That can’t be right. That can’t. What about the vindictive streak of the Allen family? What about justice? What about Wally West?

Thad opens his eyes again, finding his argument. “What about Inertia in the museum, then? The one who killed Bart?”

Max inhales sharply.

Thad continues, a little spark of anger lighting in him, “Bart was already dead when the Flash crippled Inertia. I know that! I heard Wonder Woman say so! You’ve taken revenge before; don’t tell me you wouldn’t do the same to me.”

“Thad…” Max sighs. “We should talk about that more later, but that won’t happen to you. I promise.”

“How can I trust you?” Thad spits. Baiting him. His heart’s not really in it, but Thad is good at performing anger.

“It’s not the same,” Max says firmly. “That Inertia was an active risk. And Wally wasn’t in a good place then. Bart had been killed, Thad. We all thought he was gone forever.”

For an insane moment, Thad wishes he was the other Inertia. He wishes he could have been part of a world where Bart was dead and gone and he didn’t have to think about him anymore.

“You thought Bart Allen was dead,” Thaddeus says slowly, savoring the words, rolling them in his mouth like he’s forming them into a knife under his tongue.

He glances at Max. The older man is watching Thad warily.

“Bart Allen, dead and gone…”

Thaddeus’s mouth pulls into a terrible grin. He knows exactly what he looks like. He used to practice his grin of dark triumph in the mirrored surfaces of televisions.

“So why did the Flash have to cripple Inertia?”

Max hesitates one crucial second and Thaddeus launches himself into the metaphorical crack Max left there. “I know he was dangerous, but the Flash could have just taken his speed and left him normal! You claim that won’t happen to me, but are our situations really that different?”

“Yes.”

“No they’re not!”

“Death changes things,” Max says quietly. “I won’t claim Wally was right in what he did, but he was grieving.”

“So what,” Thaddeus hisses, throat burning. “I’m grieving too and I haven’t killed anyone over it.”

Morlo clears his throat. Thad’s eyes snap to him, and for a moment all he can see is how to snap the big man’s neck, sweep his legs out and punch through his stomach, yank him down by the beard and kick his teeth out.

“You’re a good person,” Max says.

No. He’s exactly like every other nameless clone who tried to kill Bart Allen. Thaddeus is cold as ice. Angry as an arctic storm. Empty.

“Liar.”

Max flinches. Doctor Morlo hurriedly turns his back on them and heads upstairs. Good idea.

“Thad, I—”

“I don’t want to hear it. You only protect me because I tricked you into loving me when I was Bart.”

Max’s eyes snap open.

“That’s not true.” Now Max is angry. “Sophos Thaddeus Anacletus Free, that is not true.”

“Then what’s your excuse?” Thaddeus snarls. “Go on, lie to me.”

“I love you like a son,” Max says, low and furious. “Thaddeus, it kills me inside every time one of you clones dies. I would protect you all if I could. But I can’t.”

Like a son!

Like a son!

For a blinding moment, Thad wants to cry.

And then the feeling recedes and Thad is filled and surrounded by that cold emptiness again. What good is Max’s love, anyway? Much good it did any of Thad’s dead clones. Max’s love means nothing. It’s a meaningless promise, just like everything else in Thad’s life.

He sneers, “That’s right. You can’t protect any of us. I’m leaving.”

Thad swings himself off the bed. He knows that he’s about to ruin all of his hard-earned trust from Max, but he can’t bring himself to care. He can’t do this. Sit there and look at Max’s guilty old face and pretend everything is fine. He can’t cuddle and cry with a man who let his clones—his clones!—be killed.

The only emotion that can spark through the clouds of this void of feeling is anger. They were his clones and the Flash and Impulse killed them. He feels like he’s been stolen from.

Max is speaking, but Thad doesn’t care enough to listen to the words. “I want to say goodbye to Helen,” he interrupts blandly, keeping the anger below his icy surface. “But I guess that’ll have to be later. I’m not in the right mood.”

“Thad, wait.”

“Don’t chase me. You don’t want to have to kill me, after all!”

And he runs away.

As Thaddeus kicks into motion, another emotion seizes him. Fear. He controls that too, allowing it to drive him faster but not to drive him out of his intended course. He’s going to New Jersey. He’s going to Metropolis to find Joseph.

And then he’ll never have to run again.

[brown-little-robin]

This singular quiz result skyrocketed “love” to the top of my vocabulary. It came at a time when I was recovering from heavy guilt and need to please outwardly; I was just beginning to write The Strange Redemption of Thaddeus Thawne as something that I expected to gain me no praise, but which I needed to write because I loved Thad and my heart was bleeding for his end in canon. Hearing that my art comes from love... I was shocked. I was seen. I nearly cried.

I'll have y'all know I am extremely normal about this result:

(having taken this uquiz - https://uquiz.com/quiz/p0u5c3?p=1099756 - not mine just somebody else's idk who. it was fun tho.)